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Pests from neighbours garden?
Stu Wilson
Posts: 1
I have been in my current house for just over a year. Previously, I've never had much trouble with pests and have found my bulbs and seeds to grow quite successfully. My nextdoor neighbour sadly ignores her garden. It's overgrown, and wild, with a rotting collapsed shed in amongst huge conifers. this year, I've found the bulbs I planted have really struggled. I'm a real sucker for the popular spring bulbs, so planted snowdrops, crocus and daffs, all of which have struggled. I expected them to shoot late and be minimal as it's the first bloom, but I have found that a whole patch of snowdrops have been eaten, only a handful of daffs have grown past about 6", the rest were eaten, and the crocus shoots were eaten as soon as they emerged. I have noticed in the jungle next door, that lots of small birds are frequently in and out of the ruins of the shed and large hedges and trees. Is it these that are decimating my shoots? I expect catapillers to eat the summer flowers as they reach the end of August, but I've never had a pest eating the shoots before they've even shown their heads. Any ideas what I can do to stop the birds from next door eating my shoots? Could it be something else that's attacking them?
0
Posts
sounds like nature
There's likely to be a huge slug and snail population in the neighbour's garden if it's wild. All you can do is try to create a barrier they will not cross.
I have used the product in the link below to create barriers around vunerable planting and it works.
Water it in around the edges of your plot and then tackle the slug problem within the garden by your prefered method.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003P8TLSQ/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2NF93R21FMI0Y&coliid=I3640W6RRA6M25
Squirrels and mice will enjoy your crocuses, they eat the bulbs and throw the shoots away. If next door's garden is really unkempt it will be a paradise for them. Have you seen birds in your bulb planted areas?
Has to be wise to establish first what the problem is.
I have an established wildlife garden which would be described by some as jungle, though I have no more than the usual problems everyone has with pests. Birds are in out of the garden all the time, there is a massive slug population around the compost, but they all take care of themselves, newts and slow worms devour slugs, the birds eat tons of caterpillars in the summer and it ends up just the same I think in the end as running around trying to control every pest.
If though I had a specific issue (as I did last year with cabbage whites eating my greens) I would look to find the actual cause then ponder the possible solutions.
Not sure if you can blame your neighbour here, I have the same, a rotting old shed, some huge conifers that birds breed in, a huge wildlife bit, overrun with nettles and brambles. In short, a paradise for wildlife. I still have bulbs coming up. You will akways have birds and slugs and a hundred other pests, as Archie says, thats nature